I started watching subbed anime instead of dubbed and my whole world opened up

For about 3 years I only watched dubbed stuff because I thought reading subtitles would be too slow for me. Then I forced myself to try Attack on Titan subbed during a long bus ride last month. I caught details in the voice acting that just don't come through in the dub, like that raw emotion in Eren's screams. Now I'm rewatching old favorites subbed and it's like hearing them for the first time. Has anyone else felt like they missed half the story watching dubbed?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica92111h ago

Oh the part about 'raw emotion in Eren's screams' really hit home for me. I actually read this article a few years back about how Japanese voice actors put way more physical strain into their performances for emotional scenes, like they're actually crying or screaming for real compared to dubs where they sometimes just fake it in a sound booth. It made so much sense when I finally switched to subs for my own rewatches of Death Note and Code Geass. That moment when Light breaks down laughing, you can hear the real exhaustion in his voice in the sub that got totally lost in the English version. I think a lot of the cultural cues and jokes get smoothed over too, like in Gintama where the puns just stop making sense when translated for lip flaps. Honestly I feel like I wasted years not knowing how much I was missing, but better late than never right?

susan8110h ago

Yeah I totally agree with you on this. The physical toll in the original Japanese voice acting is real. You can hear it in the breathing and the little cracks in their voice that dubs just can't match. I tried watching the English dub for a few episodes of Attack on Titan and it felt flat compared to the raw emotion. The cultural humor thing is a big deal too, especially with shows like Gintama or even One Piece where the jokes rely on wordplay. It's not that dubs are bad, they just lose something important in translation. Better late than never is right, once you notice the difference it's hard to go back.

olivia_white933h ago

Cringed remembering my first sub vs dub experience. Used to think I was cool watching Naruto in English. Then I tried sub one episode. Heard Naruto's real voice crack during a sad moment. Felt like an idiot. All those years missing the actual emotion. My weeb friends still make fun of me for it.